Lea Freire

LEA FREIRE's "Cartas Brasileiras" (Brazilian Letters - 2007) is receiving the enthusiastic applause of either public and critic, in many languages. Its music is the confluence of the three main musical forces that coexist in Brazil today : African, European and Native Indian. "Vento em Madeira", the first track of this album, is a beautifull combination of these influences. With an invited orquestra adding to 62 musicians, it is a colossal production of her label Maritaca, specialized in the best Brazilian Instrumental Music.



Fully recognized as a very creative composer, some of her pieces are now being played by flutists / saxophonists in concerts in Europe and USA. In 2008 a Brazilian Orchestra - Philarmonia Brasileira, toured with Branford Marsalis throughout Usa, realizing 28 concerts which included "Vento em Madeira" as one of its pieces.



Touring in Europe in 2006, she co-produced with pianist Thomas Clausen an CD - "Waterbikes" that is being released in Danmark and Brazil, featuring Lea's an Thomas's compositions, with Teco Cardoso, Fernando Demarco (bass) and Afonso Correa (drums and percussion). Back an fourth tours in Europe and Brazil have been done since, next one In July 2009 (see schedule on this page !)



Now she is deeply envolved with "Vento em Madeira" quintet - accessible through its homepage at www.myspace.com/ventoemmadeira or by clicking in it's icon bellow. With Teco Cardoso, Tiago Costa, Edu Ribeiro, Fernando Demarco, and special guest Monica Salmaso, chamber and street music are combined, featuring band member's compositions as well as great Brazilians such as Moacir Santos and Nelson Cavaquinho.



Her discography can be accessed here on Blogs.



As a producer of Brazilian Contemporary Instrumental Music through Maritaca (www.maritaca.art.br) - her label company – she has produced more than thirty CDs – featuring names like Arismar do Espirito Santo, Filo Machado, Bocato, Vinicius Dorin, Thiago Espirito Santo, Silvia Goes, Tibo Delor, Edu Ribeiro, Mane Silveira, Teco Cardoso, Guello, Naylor “Proveta” Azevedo, Laercio de Freitas, Heloisa Fernandes and many others. For more information on her label's releases, see blog on this page about "Discography as a producer" and photo albuns related to Maritaca, or access www.maritaca.art.br.



“The appearance of Lea Freire in the musical scenery is more than a special happening. She was known already as an exceptional flute player; but as a composer she excels herself. She is one of the most complete musicians I know and stands in the front line of the most creative music that is happening in Brazil today, together with Guinga, Edu Lobo and other well known composers.” - Joyce



"Few times in my life I've listened to such good music, created by somebody of my time."

Benjamim Taubkin, by e-mail - November - 2006



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The Critic about Cartas Brasileiras



Containing some startling and original music performed with great authority and with all the harmonic and rhythmic complexities expertly negotiated, Léa Freire's new CD, Cartas Brasileiras, comes over richly and seductively to deliver a scintillating dreamscape that commemorates 10 years of the Maritaca record label as well as the 50th birthday of its founder, Léa Freire.A leading light in Brazilian music, Freire continues to break down musical barriers, moving freely between jazz, popular, and classical music. She is an inventive musician who has distinguished herself as a daring flautist, arranger, and composer. Cartas Brasileiras represents her writing at its most impressionistic and inspired. The first thing that strikes you about this recording is the orchestral warmth radiating throughout. Freire brings to the orchestra's embroidery a mesmerizing combination of luminous beauty and reserved expressiveness, and with this, new hope that Brazil, a country already rich in woodwind and brass traditions, will achieve a uniquely orchestral voice for its stringed instruments (Bruce Gilmann - Brazil Magazzine in LA)



One of the more dear and admired artists of Sao Paulo, flutist Lea Freire more an more demonstrates why she is also considered among the great contemporary Brazilian composers. Her classical formatiion is noted in the perfect finishing of her sonorous craftwork. Her involvement with the diverse forms of Brazilian popular music completes the recipy: a delicate sonorous symbiosis that magnificently expresses in the diverse tracks of the CD Cartas Brasileiras (Brazilian Letters - Maritaca, 2007). Her precious arrangements with trombonist Bocato,Anthology of Brazilian Songs, vol. 1 and 2, launched in 2005, are between the century best productions in Brazilian instrumental music. Her compositions sound, many times, as songs without words, with sophisticated melodies that, at the same time, you can whistle. But the richness of her writing also spreads in choros, waltzes, jazzy or symphonic touches, mixed genders, undefinable inventions where absolute beauty reigns.Lea is decisively stablishing herself as inheritor of the great Brazilian tradition that comes from Nazareth, and passes through Villa-Lobos and Tom Jobim, attentive to all the sources. Of each one of these the composer seems to have extracted the sum. Inspiration, talent and an enormous capacity to agregate excellent musicians around her, constructing a collective result where her creation arises, exuberant. Léa is a music lesson! (Daniel Brazil - Magazine Brazilian Music (online) - July 2007)